Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a twenty-two year old student from India at the University of California, Berkeley, was found dead in California, having been reported gone earlier in the week. The Indian Consulate General in San Francisco verified the finding and gave its sympathy to his family. People in authority are working with police to send his remains back to India.
How Saketh was looked for and found
Saketh was last seen February ninth on the 1700 block of Dwight Way in Berkeley. When he did not come back to where he lived, his roommates told people, and officials made him a missing person who might need help. For many days, groups searching used sonar, flying drones, and divers. A volunteer diving group with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office found a body in Lake Anza in Tilden Regional Park on Saturday. The coroner from Contra Costa County is now in charge of the case. Investigators haven’t yet said what caused Saketh to die, and police and the coroner are doing what they usually do in cases like this. The Consulate has offered to help with the legal and practical parts of things while the authorities do their work.
Saketh’s schooling: from IIT Madras to Berkeley
Saketh was from Tumakuru in Karnataka and got a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2025. Then he went to UC Berkeley for a Master of Science in the Product Development Program in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department. At IIT Madras, Saketh worked in the Polymer Engineering and Colloid Science Lab for almost two years. He was a Young Research Fellow and an undergraduate researcher and took part in lab work and tests having to do with soft materials and colloids. He also got to work in business through a Young Research Fellow job at Unilever and a summer research internship at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. On his LinkedIn page, he said he was keen on very new and advanced tech in soft and active materials, semiconductors, and advanced materials.
What Saketh did on campus and as a leader
Besides his research, Saketh was involved in student business and how the school was run. At IIT Madras’ E-Cell, he had a number of leading jobs, like Head of Growth and Strategic Initiatives, and also an executive in development and associations, and an associative executive. Saketh took part in how his department was run as a legislator in the Department of Chemical Engineering. His jobs show he was always involved in putting on events, helping students who were his peers, and helping the school with things. All these things he did and the duties he had showed he was a student who was into his studies and social life before he disappeared.
What his roommate said and his last days
A roommate, who later told things on LinkedIn, said Saketh had shown signs of giving up for the two weeks before he went missing. The roommate said Saketh had been eating less, doing less, and living on potato chips and cookies in that time. One thing the roommate remembered was Saketh coming back from class in a red bathrobe and saying, ‘I don’t care anymore.’ The roommate at first took the remark as something that didn’t matter, but later thought about how serious it was. Saketh had invited the roommate to Lake Anza weeks before. The roommate is helping the authorities and trying to get Saketh’s family to the U.S. on an emergency visa. He asked others to check on friends and students, especially international students who live far from their homes.
The case, help from the Consulate, and how people reacted
The local police are still looking into the case and the coroner’s office is doing what it does after someone dies. Officials have asked people not to guess what happened while the case goes on. The Indian Consulate in San Francisco said it was working closely with police and the family. It gave help for sending the remains back and other things that had to be done. The case has made people worry about how students are doing and the stresses international students face. People who lead the school and the community often stress the need for mental health help and reaching out to students who show they are upset.
